The Footbridge.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 571, 17 February 1891, Page 3

The Footbridge.

[TO THE EDITOR, i

Sib,—Your correspondent signing himself “Borough" is somewhat too uncharitable in his deductions. I cannot allow any sentence of mine, used in a relative sense, to be made a distinctly personal one. Surely it is permissible for one to use an abstract thought to exemplify a conception that has for its object the answer of a question asked. My remarks anent the potency of will referred to the Council, whose united decision whether expressed or implied upheld the averment made by two of them, that I did not speak disrespectfully, but strongly, and the Mayor's silence was a tacit approval of the decision of the Council. Mind, like matter, has its correlations, that in process of action, where a specific object is kept in view, yields a solidarity of effect in knot ratio to the will applied. Good thoughts are noble things. A strong will can give objective force to his subjective ideal. What is visible nature but a concentrated expression of the will of the supreme consciousness, and man its most intelligent counterpart manifest to our senses ? In this sense alone can man be understood as being created iu the image of his Maker. To follow out the sequence, with all its metaphysical abstractions, would involve a process of thought that few care to study. The dominant idea of the masses is to get wealth; this alone they recognise and worship, while the soul consciousness, and the potentialities of which it is capable, are left to starve. Your correspondent twitted ma with Bellamy's grand ideal, and the noble conceptions of a Tolstoi. May the power of the highest overshadow them, and the light Of their teaching drive the demons of dark avarice and worldly assumption into an everreceding night of oblivion. Thon will man’s Intuitional coun'erpart, divested of these grosser particles, reveal what the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man means. The dogmatism Of the sge shifts its responsibilities on others’ shoulders, instead Of each doing their part in life’s great work, Until those who are the backbone and lifeproduolng stimulus of a community are looked upon and treated as mere wealthproducing machines for scheming individualities to operate upon. I do not respect •he Mayor beqiuae he is the Mayor, nor a king because he is a king ; these distinctions nave no relative value in my eyes. In the abstract they stand in the same relation as the war paint on the breast of a savage does to the grand delineations ot a Raphael. The burden of his correspondence ia that either I or the Council have disrobed the Mayor. True courtesy is pleasing, but should never acecend into those servilities that are more or less the outcome of false distinctions, at once the scourge and emse of society. To say (bat the Councillors acted in g boorish manner is nonsense—they were well within their right as a duly constituted Council, or Why be Councillors at all if objections like the one raised are allowed ? Neither can I nonoede that the Mayor acted in an undignified Way—to grant that he made a mistake, Who does not ?—I should like to see such a fine; he might teach me about things I want to know Of. Anyhow, I dub the Mayor, taken ■H round, as a jolly good fellow, and I dub /our correspondent, although we differ 8 seise respect, as a jolly good fellow,

too, because he has helped to sift the whole question anent the bridge, and I sincerely tender to him my hearty thanks for it, and this is all the more desirable because so many grumble, but have not sufficient moral or mental force, or both, to come forward and say what they mean. I hope that the future developments he writes about will be that the bridge will soon go up, so that little children may trudge to school with ease and comfort, and I am quite sure that many others will respond to that with a hearty Amen. As regards what your correspondent calls my “ legal opinion,” it must not be understood in that way, but as the common-sense view of a private citizen. Many others have the same opinions on this point, and amongst them some of our respected burgesses; but since it is an established precedent that a legal opinion anent differences iu questions of public import is safe, because it exempts them from censure does not annihilate their personal convictions, though it approves their prudence. Moral obligations with their correlative surroundings are strictly defined by acts of truth and justice, legal obligations by acts of expediency. It ia not sought to saddle the Borough with an unjust imposition ; to each district the bridge is a great convenience, let each bear its fair proportion of the cost. In this your correspondent fully agrees with, yours, etc.,

J. Sandlant,